Some background
Shortly after the Geneva Convention of 1954, CIA director Allen Dulles sent Colonel Edward Lansdale to initiate a series of clandestine operations against North Vietnam. Lansdale initiated several operations, code named Nautilus, which included South Vietnam manned commando raids and the insertion of CIA recruited spies. In 1963, the CIA and US Department of Defense jointly agreed that these covert operations should transfer to the DoD. In January 1964, the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG)[1] assumed responsibility for all covert operations in Vietnam[2].
Once MAC-SOG took control of covert operations in North Vietnam, the Pentagon issued Operation Plan (OPLAN) 34-63, which entailed a continuation of commando raids[3] and the expansion of electronic surveillance through US Navy ships and patrol boats based out of Da Nang. OPLAN 34-A expanded covert operations with more ambitious missions to offshore assaults on coastal installations. When US intelligence officers realized that some of their raiders had been turned by the North Vietnamese, US covert operations shifted more toward psychological operations, which involved spreading anti-Communist propaganda and deception. The effectiveness of these clandestine measures remains questionable, but there was no doubt that both the USSR and China were actively supplying the Viet Cong (VC) with weapons and munitions, or that North Vietnam was funneling men and material into South Vietnam through Laos.
With US Navy ships collecting intelligence off the coast of North Vietnam, it was only a matter of time before the North Vietnamese challenged these encroachments, which were mostly converted minesweepers. Occasionally, but always between midnight and 0300, North Vietnamese gunboats would approach these ships at high speed and then peel off and return to their island base of operations at a location above the 30th parallel. North Vietnamese gunboats were threatening, but they never actually attacked the unarmed minesweepers. Because the minesweepers were defenseless, the Navy decided to replace them with destroyers to continue electronic surveillance. These were referred to as desoto patrols. By sending out patrol boats to challenge US navy ships (which were always conducted beyond the internationally recognized 3-mile limit), US intelligence officers were able to collect useful information about North Vietnamese (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) (DRV) military and naval capabilities. In time, the DRV replaced their gunboats with larger vessels and torpedo equipped frigates.
When President John F. Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963, the American presidency passed to Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson retained most of Kennedy’s cabinet and advisors —men who had helped craft and manage the Kennedy administration’s policies toward Southeast Asia. Prior to his vice presidency, Johnson had been a long-serving member of the US Senate and the House of Representatives from Texas —but despite those bona fides, Johnson was uncertain about his own foreign policy credentials and this forced him to rely on Kennedy’s cabinet … men such as Robert S. McNamara[4], Dean Rusk, and McGeorge Bundy.
President Kennedy (like his predecessor Dwight D. Eisenhower), was reluctant to involve the United States in another Asian war. Neither of these men were hesitant to offer military assistance, in terms of advisors and material support, but neither could see how direct involvement would benefit either South Vietnam or US interests in Indochina. Kennedy had, with some success, negotiated recognition of the Kingdom of Laos as a neutral state, but this agreement was almost immediately ignored by the DRV, who had previously used Laos to infiltrate men and material into South Vietnam —and continued to do so. In signing the accord, Kennedy was naïve. Neither did the President of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem (or the US Ambassador to South Vietnam), believe that the Geneva Accord was a good idea. Diem believed that the United States was more concerned about its own interests in Southeast Asia than it was about the security of South Vietnam —and of course, he was right.
Diem had long resented America’s heavy hand in its internal affairs. For all of his short comings (at least, according to western standards), Diem was an intelligent man who was confronted by a plethora of domestic issues, not the least of which were well-entrenched urban gangsters, rural warlords, Buddhist activists opposing a Catholic head of state, and a determined Communist insurgency. American diplomats did not seem to appreciate either Diem’s stress level or the fact that he was culturally Vietnamese. His attitudes toward curtailing dissent were not so far removed from those of his North Vietnamese counterpart, Ho Chi Minh. Diem was harsh in his suppression of dissidents and Kennedy, believing that Diem’s punitive policies were counterproductive to stabilizing South Vietnam’s (RVN) government, pushed back. President Diem deeply resented this interference. The US and RVN were at an impasse —and something had to give.
On 1-2 November 1963, President Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother (and chief advisor) Ngo Dinh Nhu were assassinated, an operation ostensibly planned and carried out by Diem’s senior military officers. Almost no one believed that these incompetent generals could have pulled off such an intricate operation without the help of the American CIA. If South Vietnam was unstable under Diem, his assassination made things worse. Ho Chi Minh, while stymied by the American-backed event, couldn’t have been more pleased.
Prelude to War
President Johnson soon learned that earlier assurances by McNamara and Bundy that the RVN was making progress against the communist insurgency were ill-founded. Secretary of State Dean Rusk warned Johnson that in fact, South Vietnam was in a deep spiral. McNamara and senior DoD officials rejected Rusk’s arguments, but as it turned out, Rusk was right and South Vietnam was in dire straits. Viet Cong attacks, performed at will, were increasing in frequency and lethality.
In late January 1964, South Vietnamese General Nguyen Khanh overthrew the ruling junta of Duong Van Minh (also known as Big Minh). It was the second coup d’état in three months. Amazingly, Johnson, who was not pleased with RVN’s progress in countering the communist insurgency, found encouragement in the coup and sought to bolster the Khanh regime. In March 1964, Johnson sent McNamara to undertake a fact-finding mission in South Vietnam. His report pointed to an easily discernible deterioration of popular morale and an acceleration of communist insurgencies. McNamara advised Johnson to send more US military and economic support.
By this time, President Johnson was convinced that South Vietnam was about to fall into the hands of the communists. He was determined not to become the first US president to lose the fight against communist aggression[5]. The emerging war in Vietnam became Johnson’s primary focus. Ultimately, Johnson decided on a series of increasingly aggressive political strategies.
But 1964 was an election year in the United States. When US Ambassador to South Vietnam Henry Cabot Lodge resigned his post and announced that he was running for the presidency, Johnson replaced him with retired US Army General Maxwell Taylor, formerly the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On Taylor’s recommendation, Johnson also replaced General Paul D. Harkins as head of the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (USMACV), with General William C. Westmoreland[6]. In making these changes, Johnson’s signal seemed clear enough: he was leaning toward a military solution to the conflict in Vietnam, rather than a diplomatic resolution.
President Johnson was also challenged for the presidency by Senator Barry Goldwater from Arizona. Johnson was many things (a decent human being not being one of them), but he was a master politician. With two very substantial challengers, Johnson increased his popularity[7] by passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (passed into law on 2 July), but he also understood this alone would not be enough to take America to another Asian war. Johnson would require the support of Congress to increase US involvement in South Vietnam. In order to achieve congressional support, Johnson would need to demonstrate that North Vietnam was a bona fide threat to the peace and security of the Southeast Asian Mainland.
On 1 August 1964, South Vietnamese commandos raided a North Vietnamese radio transmitter located on an offshore island. The very next morning, 2 August, the destroyer USS Maddox (DD 731) while cruising in international waters 28 miles off the coast of North Vietnam, engaged three North Vietnamese Navy (NVN) P-4 Motor Torpedo Boats[8] of Torpedo Squadron 135. The Commander, Destroyer Division, 7th Fleet, Captain John J. Herrick, was aboard Maddox and exercised command authority over the Desoto mission. Herrick ordered Commander Herbert Ogier, the ship’s captain, to have gun crews fire on the torpedo boats if they came within 10,000 yards of Maddox. When the boats encroached upon the Maddox, Ogier ordered three rounds to warn off the NVN craft.
The NVN commanders were brothers, Van Bot, commanding T-333, Van Tu, commanding T-336, and Van Gian commanding T-339. The attack commenced in numerical order with T-333 spearheading the attack. The maximum effective range of their torpedoes was 1,000 yards (9/10ths of a mile). Maddox’ gun range was 18,000 yards. T-333 pressed home its assault astern Maddox with the two additional boats in trace. Then, T-333 attempted to run abeam of Maddox for a side shot. T-336 and T-339 fired first, but Maddox’ five-inch gun fire threatened the torpedo boats. Both fired their torpedoes prematurely, all four missing their target. T-333 fired its torpedoes, also without effect, but then fired at Maddox with its 14.5-mm (.57 caliber) deck gun. The American destroyer received a single hit. Altering course, crewmen observed torpedoes passing Maddox on her starboard side.
Within short order, four F-8 Crusaders from USS Ticonderoga (CV-14) arrived overhead and promptly attacked the NVN torpedo boats, forcing them to withdraw. Several NVN crewmen were wounded, four were killed, and all three boats were seriously damaged. There were no US casualties. One of the four aircraft sustained damage to its left wing, but all birds returned to Ticonderoga.
On 3 August, USS Turner Joy (DD-951) was ordered to accompany USS Maddox for another Desoto mission. On 4 August, Turner Joy’s radar picked up a number of blips believed to be approaching small, high-speed surface craft, but at an extreme range. As a precaution, the two destroyers called upon Ticonderoga to furnish air support. After nightfall, radar signatures suggested the convergence of patrol boats from the west and south. Turner Joy reported that she sighted one or two torpedo wakes, ramped up her speed and began evasion maneuvers. Turner Joy then began firing in the direction of the unidentified surface vessels. Over the next two and a half hours, Turner Joy fired 220 five-inch shells; aircraft from Ticonderoga likewise fired on “suspected” torpedo boats.
This second attack on 4 August never actually happened[9], but together with the incident on 2 August, President Johnson claimed “unprovoked attacks” upon the sovereignty of the United States. On 5 August, Johnson ordered bombing raids on North Vietnamese military targets. Referred to in history as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, Johnson asked for and received Congressional approval to escalate US involvement in the Vietnam War.
In North Vietnam, General Vo Nguyen Giap made a disturbing accusation. Lyndon Johnson, he said, constructed the Desoto patrols in order to provoke North Vietnam into a response, so that Johnson could use such a response as an excuse for escalating the conflict in South Vietnam. Giap’s allegation is probably true[10]. According to Ray McGovern, a retired CIA analyst (1963-90), the CIA, “not to mention President Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy all knew full well that the evidence of an armed attack on 4 August 1964, the so-called ‘second’ Tonkin Gulf incident, was highly dubious. During the summer of 1964, President Johnson and the Joint Chiefs of Staff[11] seemed keen on widening the war in Vietnam. They stepped up sabotage and hit and run attacks on the coast of North Vietnam.”
James Bamford, author of the book Body of Secrets, who spent three years in the US Navy as an intelligence analyst, agrees with McGovern. The primary purpose of the Maddox “was to act as a seagoing provocateur —to poke its sharp gray bow and the American flag as close to the belly of North Vietnam as possible, in effect shoving its five-inch cannons up the nose of the communist navy. The Maddox’ mission was made even more provocative by being present at times that coincided with commando raids, creating the impression that Maddox was directing those missions.” Accordingly, the DRV had every reason to believe that USS Maddox was involved in the commando raids.
Here’s what we know …
In the early afternoon of 4 August (Washington time), Captain John Herrick reported to the Commander in Chief, Pacific that “freak weather effects” on Turner Joy’s radar had made North Vietnamese attacks questionable. He was clear in his statement: “No North Vietnamese patrol boats had actually been sighted.” Herrick urged a full reevaluation of these events before any further action was taken. It was too late. President Johnson had already made his televised announcement.
Secretary McNamara later testified that he had read Herrick’s message after his return to the Pentagon in the afternoon of 4 August, but that he did not immediately contact the president to tell him that the premise of his justification for retaliatory air strikes was at that time, highly questionable. Scholars now argue that had Johnson received accurate information, had he been informed of the Herrick message, he “might have demanded more complete information before proceeding with broadening the war.” Personally, given what I know of Lyndon Johnson, I doubt it.
Johnson was up for reelection. He informed congress that the USS Maddox was not involved in providing intelligence for raids into North Vietnam. He stated clearly that North Vietnamese attacks were “unprovoked.” This was a lie and he knew at the time that it was a lie. As a result of this testimony, the US Congress passed a Joint Resolution granting Johnson authority to conduct military operations in Southeast Asia without the benefit of a declaration of war. Johnson was empowered to “take all necessary steps, including the use of armed forces, to assist any member or protocol state of the Southeast Asia Collective Defense Treaty requesting assistance in defense of its freedom.”
Lyndon Johnson’s election as President of the United States in his own right allowed the administration to move forward with a more aggressive policy in Southeast Asia. Mere days before the election, Communist guerrillas attacked the US air base at Bien Hoa killing four Americans, wounding scores, and destroying twenty-five aircraft. Johnson decided (politically) not to respond to this attack so close to a national election, but on election day, he created an interagency task force to review US-Vietnam policy. Chairing this task force was William Bundy (a former CIA analyst), the brother of McGeorge Bundy (serving as chief of the State Department’s Bureau of Far Eastern Affairs).
At the time of the election of 1964, owing to the political instability of South Vietnam, the US Military Assistance Command (USMACV) under General William Westmoreland, had grown to more than 20,000 men. Of the over 800 Marines in Vietnam, most were assigned to the I Corps Tactical Zone (I CTZ) (Also, I Corps), which consisted of the five northern-most provinces of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN). Sixty USMC advisors were assigned to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) in I Corps. Aviators assigned to Shufly at Da Nang were reinforced by a Marine rifle company for airfield security. Additional Marines were assigned to the US Embassy in Saigon and the MACV staff.
In Washington, the government examined the possibility of sending US combat troops to RVN for the defense of critical US installations. General Maxwell Taylor, serving as US Ambassador to the RVN, warned the administration against over-emphasizing static security and recommended that aggressive ARVN field operations was the best strategy for stabilizing the country. Taylor was right in his assessment.
The possible employment of US forces was of special concern to the Marine Corps. In 1964, the most combat-ready Marines in the Far East were those of the 3rd Marine Division, located on Okinawa, and the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing at Iwakuni, Japan. Both commands, under III Marine Amphibious Force, were task organized to support various contingency plans for Southeast Asia.
Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the US Pacific Command activated the 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade (9thMAB)[12]under the command of the 3rdMarDiv Assistant Division Commander, Brigadier General Raymond G. Davis[13]. The ground combat element included the 9th Marine Regiment (9th Marines) and three battalion landing teams[14] (BLTs) and a Provisional Marine Air Group (ProvMAG) consisting of fixed wing and helicopter squadrons. For the first several months, 9thMAB was a pre-positioned (mostly on paper) organization with a small headquarters at Subic Bay, Philippines. Brigadier General John P. Coursey relieved General Davis in October.
On 22 January 1965, Brigadier General Frederick J. Karch[15] assumed command of the 9thMAB, which now consisted of two BLTs (1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9) and 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines (3/9)), both of which had been serving afloat with the Amphibious Ready Group/Special Landing Force since the beginning of the year. At this time, the Marine brigade was the US combat force most readily available for deployment to RVN.
Meanwhile, in Washington, President Johnson’s working group gave him three options: (1) Continue with the current approach (funding and limited military support); (2) Escalate the war and strike North Vietnam; (3) Pursue a strategy of graduated response. After weeks of discussions, Johnson endorsed the third option and directed the task force to “flesh out” its implementation.
The Bundy Plan envisioned a series of measures of gradually increasing intensity[16]. (1) An escalation of military involvement and the presence of US military personnel would bolster national morale. (2) Attack Viet Cong forces operating in South Vietnam. (3) Pressure Hanoi into ending its support of the Communist insurgency. The first phase of this plan was Operation Barrel Roll[17].
Johnson’s task force reflected his management style. He would have none of Kennedy’s lengthy debates with policy staffers. By tasking subordinates to develop broad planning initiatives, on an interagency basis, and frequently at levels far below that of senior white house officials, Johnson only considered recommendations that had already gained consensus before bringing them to his top aides. President Johnson would only make key decisions in the presence of a limited number of his closest advisors. Almost more than anything else, Johnson feared “leaks to the press.”
The problem, however, was that Johnson’s managerial style was frequently overwhelmed by events happening on the ground. No amount of tinkering would allow his administration to escape the reality of the Vietnam War: unabated political instability in South Vietnam and Communist successes in the field (being fought, of course, in South Vietnam rather than in North Vietnam). There were two problems with Johnson’s penchant for running the war from the white house: (1) With limited military experience, Lyndon Johnson was out of his depth[18], and (2) his meddling in the prosecution of the war seriously undercut the tactical prerogatives of his senior-most military officers.
The deterioration of South Vietnam’s political structure (and his apparent lack of confidence in his field commanders) led Johnson to take on an even larger role in handing the war. In February 1965, Johnson dispatched his national security advisor, McGeorge Bundy, to assess the need for an expanded bombing campaign, which William Bundy’s interagency task force had anticipated a few months earlier. At the time of Bundy’s visit, nine Americans were killed when VC elements raided Camp Holloway[19] and Pleiku. This event provided the justification for expanding US military involvement —which of course, Bundy’s task force was already considering. Another VC assault at Qui Nhon resulted in the death of 23 Americans with another 21 wounded. Within days, Johnson approved a sustained bombing campaign[20] of North Vietnam that would last for the rest of his presidency.
The attacks on Pleiku and Qui Nhon underscored the vulnerability of bases that US planes would be using in the bombing campaign. Accordingly, Johnson authorized the deployment of two Marine battalions to Da Nang in March 1965. It was a decision that caused Johnson great anxiety because he realized the likely impact of sending Marines into a combat environment and its impact in the minds of the American people.
Meanwhile, the bombing campaign did not appear affect Hanoi or the Vietcong in any significant way. By mid-March, Johnson was considering additional proposals for expanding the American combat presence in RVN. By 1 April, he decided to increase the Marine Corps footprint in RVN by two additional battalions and changed their mission from static defense of airfields to one of “active defense.” Realizing that four battalions of Marines would not be a sufficient force to stamp out the VC insurgency, he directed planners to expand the US military in Vietnam to 82,000 men.
Assessment
According to a 2005 article in The New York Times, Robert J. Hanyok, a historian for the National Security Agency, after reviewing all available information, concluded that the NSA distorted intelligence reports passed to policy makers regarding the Gulf of Tonkin incident on 4 August 1964. Hanyok said that “NSA staff deliberately skewed evidence to make it appear as if the attack had occurred.” According to Hanyok, the incident began at the Phu Bai Combat Base where intelligence analysts mistakenly believed that the destroyers would soon be attacked. This concern would have been communicated back to the NSA, along with evidence supporting such a conclusion, but the fact was that the evidence did not support their conclusion. As the evening progressed, signals intelligence did not support a North Vietnam ambush, but NSA analysts were so convinced of an attack, they ignored 90% of the data that did not support their conclusion. This, too, was excluded from information provided to the President.
Why?
John Hanyok explained, “As much as anything else, it was an awareness that Johnson would brook no uncertainty that could undermine his position. Faced with this attitude, CIA analyst Ray Cline recalled, “We knew it was bum dope that we were getting from the 7th Fleet but we were told to only give facts with no elaboration on the nature of the evidence. Everyone knew how volatile Johnson was; he did not like to deal with uncertainties.” In other words, government bureaucrats wanted to avoid a presidential tantrum directed at them.
None of the foregoing supposes that war in Vietnam could have been avoided, particularly given the United States government’s previous twenty-years of involvement in Indochinese affairs. Truman’s concerns about a domino effect of global communism were justified by the behavior of Communist states before and after World War II. By the end of the Korean War, Americans were war weary. Eisenhower wisely determined that the American people, the US economy, could not sustain another foreign conflict in 1954. He also had hopes that limited engagement would provide the government of South Vietnam the time it needed to stabilize and solve its own problems. Both Truman and Eisenhower underestimated the lengths to which Ho Chi Minh was willing to go in unifying Vietnam under the Communist flag —but neither man really knew the Vietnamese, their history or their culture. John Kennedy’s idealism and naïveté worked against the long-term interests of the United States in Southeast Asia; his acquiescence in the assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem made things worse.
Lyndon Johnson may be my least favorite character in history. He was a self-serving gangster, a liar, and lacked the kind of leadership the American people must have in time of war. Johnson’s war-time decisions traumatized the American people for a full generation —and I never actually touched upon the disaster that resulted from Johnson’s “great society” experiment with socialism. The American people are still paying for that.
Along with the good they might do, men elected to the presidency have to accept the bad as well. Presidents are mortal, after all. The men they select to advise them, in many cases, have much to do with their successes or failures. Truman’s confidence in Dean Acheson is one example, Kennedy’s and Johnson’s reliance on McNamara is another.
Richard Nixon was a deeply flawed man and did himself no honor in the matter of the Watergate Affair, but he did have an adequate measure of Ho Chi Minh and Pham Van Dong. Today, we do not give Nixon enough credit for disentangling the United States from a war that could not be won. But we must also acknowledge that the American people themselves contributed to the evolving disaster of Vietnam. They, after all, voted in elections that chose such men as Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson; they in turn made bad choices in important cabinet positions.
The costs of the Vietnam War were high. 58,318 Americans died in the Vietnam War; 153,303 received combat wounds; 2,971 of those required hospitalization; 1,587 Americans remain listed as missing in action. 778 Americans were taken as prisoners of war, of those 116 died in captivity. This should lead a rational person to the conclusion that if the United States is going to involve itself in war, given its costs, then we damn sure need to win it. The American fighting man won every battle in Vietnam, but politicians in Washington handed the enemy a strategic victory. Surely the American voter can do better than this …
“Critical analysis,” said Clausewitz, “is the application of theoretical truths to actual events.” … theoretical truths of the principles of war to the actual events of the Vietnam War to produce an explanation for our failure there. If we are to profit by our mistakes, we must understand that it was a violation of these truths, not evil or wicked leaders, that was the cause of our undoing. As David Halberstam pointed out in The Best and the Brightest, one of the saddest aspects of the war is that it was waged by well-meaning and intelligent men doing what they thought best. The tendency to find devils, however, is still with us.” —Harry G. Summers, Colonel, Infantry, U. S. Army (Retired)
Sources:
- Beisner, R.L. Dean Acheson: A Life in the Cold War. New York: OUP USA, 2006
- Beisner, R. L. Patterns of Peril: Dean Acheson Joins the Cold Warriors, 1945-46. Diplomatic History, Vol 20, 1996
- Berman, L. Lyndon Johnson’s War: The Road to Stalemate in Vietnam. New York/London: Norton & Company, 1989
- Courtois, S. and Nicolas Werth, Andrzej Paczkowski (et. al.). The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression. Harvard University Press, 1997.
- Freedman, R. Vietnam: A History of the War. Holiday House, 2016.
- Hastings, M. Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, 1945-75. Canada: HarperCollins, 2018.
- Karnow, S. Vietnam: A History. New York: Viking/The Penguin Group, 1983
- Lacouture, J. Ho Chi Minh: A Political Biography. Random House, 1968
- McNamara, R. S. and Brian Van De Mark. In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. Vintage Books, 1995.
- Summers, Jr., H. G. On Strategy: A Critical Analysis of the Vietnam War. Presidio/Random House, 1982
- Whitlow, R. H. S. Marines in Vietnam: The Advisory & Combat Assistance Era, 1954-1964. History & Museums Division, Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps, Washington, D. C., 1977
Endnotes:
[1] MAC-SOG was a cover name for a multi-service unconventional warfare task force under the direct control of the Pentagon.
[2] The US OSS and CIA knew early on that Ho Chi Minh was a thoroughly nasty man who should be opposed by freedom-loving democracies at every turn. As outlined in The Black Book of Communism, Ho Chi Minh directed the Viet Minh in the conduct of a ruthless assassination campaign to remove all potential political opponents. The campaign began around 1944 (although some argue as early as 1941). Victims included Bui Quang Chieu, leader of the Constitutional Party and Ngo Dinh Khoi, brother of Diem, who headed the Party for Independence in North Vietnam. Again, with reference to The Black Book, Ho Chi Minh and his successors orchestrated the murder of more than 1 million people between 1941 and 1980.
[3] Commando type insertions involved Vietnamese personnel so that the US could deny involvement. Most were unsuccessful with the commandos frequently being captured and executed.
[4] If there is one man who is most culpable for America’s failed strategy in the Vietnam War, it is McNamara.
[5] Johnson wasn’t was interested in winning the fight as he was in not losing it.
[6] General Westmoreland was a proficient general, but two factors worked against him. First, he was political, which is the bane of most senior (three and four star) officers. Second, he didn’t have the courage to tell Johnson that he didn’t need the president’s help in running the war.
[7] Owing to President Kennedy’s assassination, American voters remained sympathetic toward Johnson. Lyndon Johnson won the 1964 election with 303 electoral votes to Richard Nixon’s 219.
[8] The P-4 was a 66-foot-long aluminum hulled boat armed with two torpedoes each mounted with a 550-pound TNT warhead. The P-4 was capable of exceeding 40 knots per hour.
[9] Rear Admiral James Stockdale, a veteran of World War II, a naval aviator and prisoner of war in North Vietnam, and a recipient of the Medal of Honor, testified that the second incident, reported on 4 August, never happened. Stockdale said, “I had the best seat in the house to watch that event, and our destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets—there were no PT boats there. There was nothing but black water and American firepower.”
[10] One should ask, What would be the US response to foreign attacks upon coastal military installations inside the territory of the United States?
[11] U. S. Army General Earle Wheeler served as Chairman of the JCS from 3 July 1964 to 2 July 1970. From 1961-64, he served as Chief of Staff of the United States Army. Wheeler was regarded by some senior officers as a “yes man,” and exactly what President Johnson was looking for in a JCS chairman —General Curtis LeMay being one of them.
[12] The designation “Amphibious” in task organizations was later changed to “Expeditionary.” In 1965, the usage was 9th Marine Amphibious Brigade.
[13] Holder of the Medal of Honor.
[14] The BLT is the basic Marine unit in an amphibious or vertical assault. It is a task organized infantry battalion reinforced with necessary combat support and combat service support elements (artillery, motor transport, tanks, amphibian tractors, engineers, communications, shore party, reconnaissance, and medical teams).
[15] A veteran of several amphibious campaigns in World War II.
[16] Which makes it apparent that no one in the Johnson Administration knew anything about Vietnam, its history, its people, or their culture. It is equally apparent that few senior military officers were equipped to fight the war in Vietnam, that most accepted the erroneous notion that the United States could defeat North Vietnam through an air campaign, and no one understood the value of defeating an enemy on his own territory.
[17] A USAF and Naval Air campaign designed to disrupt North Vietnam’s logistical corridor, known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail from 1964 to 1973.
[18] While serving in the US House of Representatives, Johnson received a direct commission to lieutenant commander in the US Navy Reserve. He was called to active duty after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and initially assigned to inspect shipyard facilities in Texas and on the West Coast. Johnson, a trusted ally of Franklin Roosevelt, was later send by Roosevelt to obtain information of conditions in the Southwest Pacific Area. While serving as an observer aboard a B-26 during a schedule air strike on New Guinea, the aircraft developed mechanical problems and was returned to its base of operations. According to Johnson, however, his aircraft received battle damage and was forced back to base before reaching its objective. Flight records reflect that the aircraft never came under enemy fire. Nevertheless, General MacArthur awarded Johnson the silver star medal for “gallantry in action.” He was the only member of the flight crew to receive an award. Returning to Washington, Johnson gave MacArthur’s command a good report.
[19] Named in honor of Warrant Officer Charles E. Holloway, the first Army aviator assigned to the 81st Transportation Company killed in action.
[20] Operation Rolling Thunder.
Fix Bayonets! 